Some audio coding apparatus may be configured to achieve different levels of performance across one or more performance measures, e.g. relating to complexity, battery life, latency, bit rate, error resilience and quality. This may be achieved by selecting from a range of audio coding tools each having a respective effect on performance in respect of one or more performance measures. Such apparatus may be referred to as multi-dimensional audio coding apparatus, and the corresponding algorithms may be referred to as multi-dimensional audio coding algorithms.
During use, the configuration of the coding apparatus may have to be modified over time to achieve varying performance goals. This configuration can be complex given the high number of possible coding tool combinations and their varying impact on the coding apparatus. The coding apparatus may also behave differently depending upon the system and hardware platform in which it is incorporated during use and/or the task it is performing at any given moment. This results in a coding algorithm that is difficult to characterize and control.
It would be desirable to provide an adaptive control mechanism to optimally select an appropriate set of audio coding tools at any given instant using system performance measures.